A biography

A board I visit had a challenge to write a biography in three six word lines. Read here for a better explanation and some examples.

Anyhow. here is my effort at summing my life up in just eighteen words.

Little House, Little Women, Anne Shirley
Five Little Peppers and Pippi Longstocking..
Lives lived in pages, mirror mine.


So, can you do it? Can you sum yourself up in just a few words?

It's a Rainy kind of day here

And we all felt like a treat. So I made pancakes.With homemade berry syrup. Don't worry, I will give you one of my famous recipes at the end.
I made myself a giant pancake that was really more berry than pancake. I did this because I jumped back on my weightwatcher bandwagon. I almost quit last week. I had a big old pity party, convinced myself I was probably back up to my original weight, and yelled at mysef in the mirror. "You are a big fat failure!" I yelled. "You can't do a single thing right. You can;t see a single thing all the way to the finish. Failure...failure...failure..." It echoed wherever I went. I saw my reflection in the door of the microwave. "failure...failure..."

Only, I am not a failure. I can look all around me and see things that I have not failed at. So, I went back to my meeting today. My face was red and I was ashamed because I just knew I had lost all the hard work that I had done. My leader gave me a hug. She told me I was a winner just for showing up. And I knew she spoke the truth. It is far easier to quit in the sight of failure then it is to just push through. And, boy am I ever thankful that I pushed through. I had not by any means gained all my weight back. Not even close. My mind was lying to me. I actually lost 1.5 pounds. Lesson to self: Your grades don't come in until you die. Keep trying. keep working. And do NOT ever ever ever listen to the reflection in the mirror. She is a liar.


By the way, we have gone gluten free here, which means a shift in my recipes. Gluten free families will be thrilled. Everyone else will have to bank on my meat and veggie recipes.


Very Berry Syrup (Becka's Famous Vague Recipe)
Half a bag of frozen mixed berries (from aldi's)
Some sugar. (My guess is 3 TBS- though I admit, 1/2 a cup would have been far better)
Splash of lemon juice
Some water to thin

Heat on the stove. On low. For a long time. When it looks good, pour it on your pancakes.

Marcus loved the berry syrup. He said it was the best ever. I need to replace the reflection in the mirror with him.

PS, the pancakes we Pamela's brand. I have done Gluten Free before and eventually I got brave enough to try the million and one different flours, but for a while, I plan to just use the pre-made mixes. Besides- Pamela knows how to make yummy pancake mix.

Three Hotels in Three Days...

Or
How Not to Take a Vacation...
Or
How to Survive life in a Hotel With Seven Kids...
Or
Chicken Soup for a Grandma's Soul

Seriously, now, with all that is going on with this post, it's hard to choose a title. Basically, this is going to be a long dreadful story sprinkled with almost a million pictures. The story is meant to be cathartic for me. The pictures are for a grandma who is desperate to see her babies.

It all starts with my sister who has the most hilarious blog ever, but rarely posts. she is moving to Ohio and needed me to watch her kidlets (of which there are four) while she hunted for a house.

Hmmmm. Insanity set in and I said "yes". Seven kids in one hotel room. Seriously. I was insane.
Tip number one:





Bring electronics. Lots of them. Enough to share. Perhaps you will be caught in a blizzard, unable to leave your hotel room. You will be grateful for leapsters, and televisions, and computer, and wiis.

Tip Number Two:
Hot water is very important. Really. it is. Water of some sort at all is even more important. Our hotel decided not to have any, and so, we learned this the hard way. We spent two hours on the phone searching for a new hotel room. We found one. Next door. Right as the blizzard started.

Also, it does help if you are snowed in with some really cute kids.

Tip number three:Don't burn the first hotel down. Especially if they don'thave water.

Tip Number Four:
When all else fails, and when those cute kids decide they no longer want to be in a hotel room that does not have internet (even though it was advertised) and only 8.2 cable channels, then, baths and blowdryers will work for some temporary entertainment.

Tip number Five:
There are crazy quilting ladies from Detroit, Michigan who won't hestitate to drive to Ohio in the kiddle of a real blizzard which is producing 2 ft of snow and zero visibilty and insist on taking your hotel room. Evidentally, crazy people such as those, actually do exist.

Tip Number Six:
Blizzards are real things. It took us twenty minutes and half a heart-attack to drive two miles.

Also, our new hotel has no cable tv. Fortunately Uncle Jesse is willing to entertain the kids with warcraft. Which is good because the wii can't be hooked up here either.

Snow Day

The Toasty Toes kids are famous for our itty bitty snowmen.Want to know a secret? Mommy makes them all. My kids have their father's intolerance for freezing cold wetness.

I love snow. When it's real. St Louis only gets one good snow storm a year. THis was our second, but we missed the first.



Don;t you love my kid's mismatched gloves? Who knows where the matches are. It's hard to keep up when you only use them once a year. This year, Weston was the only one who would join me in some snow play. The rest of the kids weenied out. Weston started crying icicle tears after only ten minutes. Wimp.

For the love of Green

And we all know how much I love green. You can;t see it, but I am wearing a green shirt in this picture, and wiping the stove with a green dishtowel. I am greeninsane.Broccoli soup. Green yumminess. Hold for my usual vague recipe.
Does my bowl make you jealous? It's green. Cause, I love green. Dustan bought it for me at a small artist boutique in the AMANA COLONIES. It's itty small, perfect potion sized. I admit though...I had two bowls


Cream of broccoli soup
Melt some butter in a saucepan. Add onions.
Add some flour. Enough to make a dough ball. Cook this thoroughly but do not BURN.
Eat some of it.
Eat some more. Cause Roux is yummylicious.
OKay. Stop eating it now, because it will make you fat and you need it for the soup.
Add some finely chooped broccoli (I used raw, next time, I will steam it first because it took forever to get soft.)
Add milk. I wish I could tell you how much...but if I did, it wouldn't be a Beckified recipe. Add in small increments and just keep adding until it is the thickness you desire.
Cook.
Taste.
Add salt. It needs salt.

And then, add some grated chedder cheese to the top, and eat away.
Get seconds. Because it if wonderful good, and it has green veggies in it which will make you healthy. (ignore all the cream and butter you used)

It makes lovely leftover too.
Oh, and a warning against trying to feed this to children. Children do not have the same obsession for the color green that I do. They won't appreciate green soup. Unless they are aliens. In which case, I will trade my green veggie hating kids for you alien child.
For those who need a proper recipe...here is one that I found that was awfully close to mine:
Cream-of_Broccoli-Soup